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Improve Average Handle Time Using This Key Metric

Posted on Michael Hartsog

The way customers can contact companies has multiplied over the years, which has changed the way contact center agents do their work. Previously, Average Handle Time (AHT) was the metric that indicated how long it took to complete an interaction with a customer, which in turn decided staffing levels.

Back in the day, when contact was made primarily via the phone or email, handle time was more straightforward. Now, customers can engage with a company via web chat, sms/text messaging, in their app, or on social media. This kind of asynchronous communication means that a conversation with a customer can span 2 minutes, 2 hours, or 2 days.

Improve Average Handle Time with ‘Work Time’

At Quiq, we’ve developed a metric dubbed “Work Time” that captures the intent of traditional handle time metrics, while accounting for the nuances of the messaging channel. In this article, we’ll dive into the Work Time metric and show you how it’s calculated.

How much time are agents spending on customer interactions?

That is a fundamental question of the contact center. The messaging channel poses new challenges when answering this question owing to its asynchronous nature and a high degree of concurrency.

Agents using Quiq Messaging can typically handle 5 or 6 conversations at one time. Add to this the ability for customers to step away from a conversation at any point and resume the conversation with the agent at a more convenient time, and you can see how calculating agents handle time gets a bit complicated. Quiq Messaging simplifies the calculation and does the work for you through the Work Time metric.

Why is Work Time important?

The way customers can contact companies have changed but the way we measure the success of that contact hasn’t changed much. Regardless of the channel, successful conversations end with a resolved issue and a satisfied customer.

Part of the customer’s satisfaction can be attributed to how long they wait to engage with a representative and how long it takes to resolve their issue. The Work Time Metric helps contact centers track and evaluate these activities to improve the performance of your team and identify what can be modified to make things even more efficient.

How Work Time is measured

When an agent is engaged in a messaging support conversation, he or she might look up an order or do an inventory check. In either case, the work is ultimately represented by a message sent back to the customer. When an agent sends a message, we measure backwards from the time of the message to the most recent of the following events:

  • The oldest unsatisfied¹ customer message on this conversation
  • The most recent message sent by this agent on any conversation
  • The assignment of this conversation to this agent
  • The last reactivation of the conversation (from inactive to active status)

The interval between the most recent of these events and the time of the current message represents a work segment that is associated with the current conversation and agent. These segments will always exclude periods when the conversation is inactive. The diagram below depicts how work segments are calculated with awareness of simultaneous customer interactions by a single agent.

1An unsatisfied customer message is a customer message with no subsequent agent messages

In some cases, the work segments extend back from an agent message to the unsatisfied customer message. In other cases, the segments are cut short due to activity on another conversation, or an event such as assignment.

The sum of all work segments on a given conversation is the total work time and is computed progressively as a conversation proceeds. Quiq exposes this information at several integration points and visualizes it in the Quiq Reports tab.

How to use the Work Time Metric

Work Time is a key productivity metric that can help you manage your workforce in an age of omni-channel engagement. Here are the three main use cases you’ll want to keep an eye on this metric:

  • Staffing Forecasts

Understanding the average work time requirement of customer interactions will allow you to staff appropriately as you direct more interactions to the messaging channel or in anticipation of busy periods.

  • Workforce Assessment

Work time can be used to evaluate individual agents or entire teams. Agents with the same responsibilities but disparate average work time metrics are indicative of under or over-performing agents.

  • Agent Workload Tuning

Quiq allows you to configure how many simultaneous conversations an agent may be assigned through a configuration known as the agent ‘soft limit’. The ideal number of simultaneous conversations varies by use case. Watching the average work time of your interactions while adjusting the soft limit will allow you to identify the optimal configuration. If the work time increases significantly after an increase to the soft limit, you know that agent context switching is taking a toll on your customer interactions.

Measure the productivity of your digital engagement

Messaging is a workforce management game-changer. With messaging, you can do a lot more with your existing staff. That includes decreasing Work Time, while actually increasing customer satisfaction scores. Customers prefer messaging because it puts them in control of the conversation and allows them to engage with a company on their time.

Just because the customer is in control of the conversation, doesn’t mean your contact center productivity is out of control. Agents will have the efficiency of asynchronous messaging and managers have Quiq’s Work Time metric for the data and insights to manage their workforce.

Customer Texting – 23 Reasons Everyone Loves Texting for Customer Service

Posted on Michael Hartsog

Love is a pretty strong word. For those who think that it might be too strong of a word to describe the way consumers feel about text messaging, take a look at these stats:

  • Over 6 billion text messages are sent in the U.S. each day.
  • 90% of text messages are read in 3 minutes or less
  • Texts have an astounding 96% open rate
  • Texting is the most widely-used feature on a smartphone – even more than making calls

Considering these stats, maybe obsession is a better word.

Regardless of what you call it, the attachment to texting is real. But it’s not just customers who love texting. Companies, from retail to credit unions to consumer services, and everything in between, have increased engagement, reduced costs, and improved customer satisfaction by using business to customer text messaging.

Effortless, Connected, and Proactive Customer Experiences

Messaging enables companies to deliver exceptional customer support by providing what has become fundamental tenets of customer-centric companies:

  • Effortless
  • Connected
  • Proactive

We feel so strongly about messaging and how it can transform customer experiences, we wanted to dive into those three points a little deeper. We’ve pulled together a list of 23 reasons everyone, and we mean everyone, from customers to agents to company leadership, loves business to customer texting.

Some customer service leaders may be hesitant to disrupt the status quo. We wanted to make it clear that there’s already a disruption underway. If you’ve been looking for a reason to implement messaging for your customers or a reason to disrupt the status quo, here are 23 of them.

23 Reasons Everyone Loves Customer Texting

    1. Just Human EnoughIt’s not that your customers hate human interaction, it’s just that they’d rather interact with their family and friends instead of waiting on hold to talk to one of your customer service representatives. Messaging delivers interactions that are just human enough. Customers know that there is someone on the other end who cannot only sympathize with their situation but serve as their advocate.
    2. On-demand
      Customers expect to get the support they need, however, and whenever they want it. It can be frustrating for customers to have to work around your business hours. Messaging provides customers an outlet to engage with a company on their terms.
    3. Asynchronous
      We get it — sometimes customers have to step away from the computer in the middle of a chat session. That’s why our chat platform is asynchronous, meaning conversations can be picked up at a later time, right where they left off. There’s no need to restart the conversation — just keep it going!
    4. Convenient
      Waiting on hold to talk to customer support is no one’s favorite pastime. Cut out the holding music and let your customers get in touch through their preferred messaging channel. Customer texting doesn’t require a huge time investment or just the right conditions. The asynchronous nature of text messaging allows the customer to send a text message while they go about their day. Your customer can be on a noisy train, in a room full of people, or just on the go and too busy to make a call.
    5. Intuitive for Agents
      Nearly everyone, including your agents, uses text messaging on a daily basis. That includes your agents. That makes training agents for text support a breeze — often taking less than a day.
    6. Natural for Customers
      There’s no need for customers to download an app or follow any complex instructions. All they do is shoot you a text. In fact, your customers are probably trying to text you already. When Quiq clients get started with business text messaging, they are usually surprised to find that their customers are already trying to message them on their 1-800 number.
    7. Easy
      Finding the right number to call for help, taking a break from your day to call customer support, waiting on hold, and navigating a confusing IVR presents hurdles for your customers. Messaging removes those hurdles by making it easy for your customers to contact you.
    8. Succinct
      People who use customer texting are conditioned to be succinct and to the point. Agents don’t necessarily have to sacrifice the personable, “get-to-know-you” messages with customers but those conversations won’t go too long on messaging.
    9. Fun
      Emoji’s and gifs are a fun way to interact with customers. Agents can set a more casual tone to a conversation with these fun features. Rich text messaging can even allow exciting augmented reality experiences.
    10. Fast
      Quiq clients have discovered that many of the conversations received on messaging are relatively quick questions, like order status. These conversations can usually be resolved in just a couple of short exchanges and take a lot less time than making a phone call.

More Benefits of Texting for Customer Service

    1. Affordable
      Via text, customer service agents can handle multiple conversations at a time — often up to 8. Add in the convenience of AI-powered chatbots, and you have a customer support system that is affordable, efficient, and easy to implement.
    2. Accessible
      We may not all check Facebook regularly or use web chat when it’s available, but everyone has their mobile phone for the majority of the day and will consistently check SMS messages.
    3. Flexible
      Messaging provides multiple ways to share information. PDFs, links, videos, and images can be easily exchanged within a conversation.
    4. Enhanced Interactions
      The rich media offered from Apple Business Chat and Google Rich Business Messaging extends the interaction to include rich cards and list pickers that help customers choose open appointment times or browse a catalog. They can even complete transactions via Apple Pay or Google Pay.
    5. Interactive
      Customer texting provides a way for customers to interact with your company. There’s a natural back and forth, just like a phone call. Messaging gives your customers a way to converse and interact in a way that an FAQ page cannot.
    6. Discreet
      There’s just some information that people are more prudent about discussing, especially when they are in a public place. Instead of sharing their home address or phone number with a company while waiting in line, where anyone can overhear, messaging allows private information to stay private.
    7. Responsive
      In today’s always-on world, you’re either instantaneous or you’re out. Your customers can get a response from a chatbot immediately after they send you a text, and they can then be routed to an appropriate agent if necessary. Quiq messaging helps agents prioritize conversations based on how fast the customer expects a reply.
    8. Unobtrusive
      Making a phone call means a customer has to take time out of their day, to do business on your terms. Customer texting is an easy, convenient, and unobtrusive way to engage with a company where the customer is in control of the conversation.
    9. Efficient
      Agents who use Quiq Messaging have powerful tools that increase efficiency at their fingertips. Tools like pre-written snippets can help agents avoid retyping the same answers to frequently asked questions. This feature really helps customers by ensuring they receive consistent, up-to-date responses.
    10. Effective
      The nature of customer texting requires messages that are brief and clearly expressed. When customers need a quick reply on a simple question, messaging helps the customer and agents get to resolution fast.
    11. Personal
      Quiq clients and the customers they serve have told us that they love the outbound message feature available in the Quiq Messaging platform. Clients who use Quiq messaging are able to send targeted and personal messages that are more relevant to their customers, like appointment confirmation and order status.
    12. Easy to reference
      Customers are able to reference previous messages sent and received by simply scrolling through their conversation history. Agents have the same advantage of having conversation history so there’s no need to ask customers to repeat themselves. Also, a transcript of the conversation is available after the interaction has ended that agents can send via email.
    13. Insightful
      Managers who use Quiq messaging love the insight available to them from the reporting dashboard. Data on customer wait time, the amount of customers in the queue, and information on agent activity helps managers make more informed decisions for their contact center.

Customer Texting: The Way Forward

As you can see, customer texting is rife with benefits to businesses of all kinds. When you’re ready to explore the potential of texting for customer service, click the button below to see it in action!

How to Measure Customer Success KPI’s

Posted on Cristina Bravo-Olmo

Customer success is vital to your product or service achieving the desired goals you or your company has set. Customer success is the methodology you take to ensure that your customer’s needs are met in a manner that aligns customer, vendor, and company goals. If you are implementing your customer success correctly then you will see your pipeline activity increase and your customer metrics improve. So, the question is, how can you be sure your customer success initiatives are performing? The way you can be absolutely sure how well your company is performing and what areas are performing well is by tracking the correct metrics, gathering them, and then analyzing them. You cannot properly gather, organize, or analyze your data if you do not know which metrics to look for. That is why we wrote this article.

This article looks at which metrics are most important to track the health and vitality of your customer success initiatives. Customer success key performance indicators (KPIs) will not only speak to the health of your customer success strategy, but they will also speak to the health of your relationship with your customers.

Background

Traditionally, the disciplines that were used to measure customer success KPIs were customer service and customer support. Customer service and support have been previously been labeled as ‘cost drivers’ but now, due to advances in customer success technology, service and support are seen as potential sources of revenue generation. The shift in perspective on customer service and support is also due to the paradigm shift in the customer journey. Previously, customers have only had interactions with businesses at certain points in the funnel, but now businesses are finding it extremely valuable to interact with every stage of the customer journey.

This increased focus on the granular aspects of the customer journey has led to an increased focus on the metrics associated with customer perceived value; this is a technical way of saying businesses are now more focused on their customers and their customers’ desired outcome. Companies are making customer pain-points a higher priority than ever before, pouring company assets, time, and capital into strategies and solutions that look to address the concerns of their clients. All of this effort, focus, and investment requires an awareness of the measurements that indicate success or failure. Leaders want to know if their customer success efforts are working. In order to gauge the effectiveness of their campaigns, they are analyzing key performance metrics associated with customer success.

Top 5 Customer Success KPIs

Identifying key performance indicators (KPI) for your customer success programs will allow you to track, measure, and properly analyze your customer success initiatives. Being able to properly assess your customer success campaigns is vital to ensuring their effectiveness. So, let’s jump right in.

1. Net Promoter Score (NPS)

This is the metric that indicates how likely customers would be to recommend your product or service to their friends and family. A good net promoter score means that your customers are more likely to promote your brand via word-of-mouth. You generally want a score that is in the 50 or higher, with 75 being a great score (keep in mind that no company scores 100).

While there are many different ways to gather this information, the most popular way is through a survey of customers. The survey is comprised of one question. Yep, you guessed it: “How likely would you be to recommend this product or service to your friends and family?” The respondents would be asked to rate their willingness on a scale of 0 to 100, the NPS is then calculated by taking your “promoters” (those who give higher scores) and subtracting your “detractors” (those who give lower scores).

Net promoter score is important because it indicates the health of your pipeline and your brand. Just as it is cheaper to retain employees, it is also cheaper to retain customers. Your NPS is THE metric for showing how well you are treating your customers and how likely they are to promote your product or service.

2. Upselling and Cross-Selling Rate

These metrics speak to the number of sales you have made through an alternate offer. Amazon attributes over 35%of its revenue from upselling, and JetBlue used its upselling program to generate an additional $190M. Shoot for a 1-2 percent additional increase in revenuethrough upselling and cross-selling. Upselling your customers is a great way to generate more revenue, but it cannot be accomplished effectively without your customers feeling valued. Customers want to be in a relationship with companies who will meet their needs, both from a product or service fulfillment standpoint and a customer success standpoint. A customer’s willingness to pay for additional or alternative products is very indicative of how well you are doing in the customer success department.

3. Revenue Per Customer (RPC)

This straightforward, but important metric looks at the average revenue a customer brings the business over a certain period of time. In order to calculate this important data, we need to gather the total amount of revenue generated in our period of interest and divide it by the total number of customers in the same time period. Knowing your RPC is a great way to benchmark your revenue objectives and analyze your strategy. Facebookand Apple both use this metric as key portions of its investor reports, these giants both know the importance of knowing your revenue per customer metrics. Customer success initiatives can be judged on the amount of revenue per customer; whether it increases or not is a great indicator of how your customer success program is actually impacting your bottom line.

4. Rate of Returning Visitors (RVR)

RVR is a very meaningful metric for retail, travel, gaming, consumer services, or other consumer-oriented B2C industries. The rate of returning visitors calculates the number of returning visitors to your site. In order to calculate RVR, look at the number of repeat visitors to your site and divide that number by unique visitors. This metric can provide additional insight into your customer success strategies, especially as they relate to your content and user experience. Customers that like the onsite experience and can easily navigate to resources will return again and again. If your RVR is low, you may want to consider options to increase the overall experience of your site.

5. Customer Effort Score (CES)

There is perhaps no other metric more important for customer service accountability than customer effort score. CES refers to the amount of work a customer had to go through in order to accomplish a certain task, like return an item, upgrade their subscription, or any other task that can be accomplished on the client side of your business model. This metric is measured through surveys, where customers are asked “How much effort did you have to put in to make a purchase?” The answers are then scored on a scale of 1 to 7, or 1 to 5, with one being low effort and higher scores indicating higher effort. CES is a great way of examining any barriers or pain points in the customer journey. Once pain points have been identified by CES, it is up to you and your team to fix them.

Final Thoughts

At the end of the day, there are many different metrics that can be tracked and analyzed in order to gain a more granular perspective on different aspects of your customer success strategy and execution. The above KPIs should be viewed as a foundational starting point for gauging the health of your customer success program and for a way to gain insights into areas of your business that can be augmented with additional customer success solutions. If you should want more information on how to gain an even deeper, more impactful look at your customer success programs, you can reach us here.

What is Digital Customer Service and How to Improve It

Posted on Michael Hartsog

In today’s climate, customer service is an essential part of any business. With so many  choices and resources at a buyer’s fingertips, companies must continue to invest in their customer service infrastructure in order to get ahead of the competition. That’s where digital customer service comes in. If you’re asking, “what is digital customer service?” then you’ve come to the right place. In this article, we will define digital customer service, provide some examples, and discuss ways you can improve your own customer service across the digital channels your customers care about. So, without further ado, let’s dive in.

Definition

The most basic definition of digital customer service is the practice of meeting customers’ needs across digital channels and platforms. Customer service can take place across multiple digital channels, such as live chat, SMS/text, or Apple Business Chat. The popularity of direct messaging with brands on social channels like Whatsapp, Facebook, and Twitter have also opened up new ways for consumers to engage with companies.

The channels that are best for your business will depend on your customer’s preferences. For some businesses, offering live chat on the company’s website may be the best way to serve your customer, while others may find consumers reaching out to them on social media. The biggest benefit of digital customer service is deflecting phone calls to lower cost digital channels. Reducing customer wait times and automating part or all of a conversation resulting in higher agent productivity are huge benefits that Quiq’s clients have realized in addition to higher customer satisfaction scores

Now that we’ve covered the basics, let’s look at a few examples of digital customer service channels and dig a little deeper into the benefits they provide.

Digital Customer Service Channels

Business Text Messaging

One of the most popular channels for digital customer service is business text messaging. SMS text messaging has grown exponentially in terms of popularity and use due to the fact that 66% of consumers prefer text messages over calls.

Consumers use their cell phones for everything from banking to shopping. Business text messaging gives customers resolution in 25% less time than a phone call or an email. From an operational standpoint, messaging is a real boost to agent productivity, With asynchronous messaging, agents can handle multiple simultaneous conversations.

This is accomplished largely through the automation of routine tasks that were once handled with expensive manual labor. Make sure you are automating every routine task in your customer service pipeline. This will free up labor hours to work for you in another, more profitable area. When digital customer service is done right, it saves you and your customer both time and money.

The ability to engage with a brand over social media has become a foregone conclusion for most consumers. It shouldn’t come as a shock that people expect to see the brands they trust on these apps since they spend so much time interacting with others. For example, Facebook Messenger has over 1.3 billion monthly users and Twitter has 145 million daily users

It’s also not a shock that companies have responded by meeting their customers where they already are.There are 60 million active business pages on Facebook and 92% of companies tweet more than once a day. That’s a lot of activity and companies have seized the opportunity to engage with their consumers.

Live Chat

Using your website as a portal for customer service issues is a great way to make use of the digital infrastructure you already have in place. You can efficiently meet customers’ needs by being exactly where they expect you to be, waiting to talk with them about their needs or concerns. While this feature used to be a high-priced upgrade, it is now considered an essential part of a web presence by 44% of online consumers.

If a customer is browsing your site and has a question, it is much easier for them to click on a chat bubble than to call your contact center With messaging you can offer customer service without having to interrupt their  experienceAs with SMS or social chat, customer service agents can handle multiple conversations.

Now that we’ve looked at a few examples of digital customer service, let’s talk about what you can do to improve customer service channels. Since everyone’s business, market conditions, goals, and budget are different, the best way to approach the improvement of your digital customer service channels is to ask yourself a few questions:

Are you accessible…enough?

When you look across the channels that are available to your customers do you see lengthy queues or spikes in abandonment rates in any channel or during certain times of the day? These are definitely signs that your customers aren’t reaching you on their terms. There may be others you should keep an eye out for but Quiq clients have found long wait times and abandonment rates are the tell tale signs that they aren’t being accessible enough.

Many of Quiq’s clients have implemented messaging to reduce wait times and help customers after normal business hours. Messaging, along with features like routing rules, suggested replies, and bots have helped Quiq’s clients manage conversations with the efficiency their customers  need.

Do you know what options are available to you?

Have you done your research on the latest digital channels? Offering SMS/Text, live chat, and social media channels are the basic channels that your customers expect. Are you familiar with verified SMS, Apple Business Chat, and Google’s Business Messages?

These messaging channels are some of the latest developments that help brands present customers with trusted, secure channels to get pre-sales support or post sales service. For example, Apple Business Chat and Google’s Business Messages are rich communication services (RCS) that can expedite appointment scheduling and shopping. These messaging channels even enables customers to complete transactions without ever leaving their conversation.

Are you keeping it simple?

By encouraging you to keep things simple, we’re not advocating for you to rely on traditional channels like email and phone calls. Quite the opposite actually. We’ve seen companies simplify engagement by adding digital channels. Adding digital channels or implementing more advanced features like chat bots are not as complex as you may think and makes initiating and managing conversations simple for both your agents and your customers.

Quiq’s messaging platform has an intuitive agent desktop that makes it easy for agents to manage multiple, simultaneous conversations across all of our supported channels. Your customers get the freedom to choose their preferred channel to engage with your company while agents have the technology they need to deliver great service.

Quiq customer service messaging platform on mobile and desktop

Final Thoughts

As you begin to investigate your digital customer service strategies and methodologies, remember that the fundamentals of customer service have not changed. People still want to be treated fairly, with respect, and in a professional manner — they just want to get that treatment when and where they want it. As you look to vendors to help you accomplish your customer service goals, look for those can provide all of the things your customers are looking for in a manner that is seamless, fast, and integrated.

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10 Omni-channel Customer Service Best Practices You Can Count On

Posted on The Quiq Team

Today’s purchaser has evolved to a savvy, well-researched shopper who is quite comfortable online. With the prevalence of personalized options and experiences across the wide range e-commerce sites, your buyers are not only used to a personalized experience — they expect it. Therefore, it stands to reason that your website must be able to live up to the expectations of your customers. That means you need to offer up a seamless customer service experience that is both customer-centric and intuitive. You must create a customer service infrastructure that can take into every channel because you never know which channel your sales will come from.

This means developing an omni-channel customer service experience that you can count on. That’s why we made this list of 10 omni-channel customer service best practices. Use these best practices to increase the performance of your customer service platforms and continue to meet the expectations of your customers.

10 Omni-channel Customer Service Best Practices

1. Make the Digital Experience More Appealing

Shoppers today expect their experience on your website to be just as appealing, if not more appealing, than their experience in-store. That means your website needs to be simple, easy to navigate, and overall pleasant to look at. It has also has to be able to handle a wide array of support capabilities that the customer cannot see. In order to pull this off, you really need to understand who your target customers are and then create product descriptions and visualizations that appeal to your target customer’s point of view. Among other things, you will also need to enhance your onsite navigation with features like site search and an automated chat feature that assist your visitors in real-time. Providing a great user experience will alleviate many customer service pain points, freeing up time, resources, and energy that can be directed at more complex issues.

Make the digital experience more appealing

2. Provide a Self-Service Section

Another way to augment your customer service strategy is to let your customers find the information they need, without using your customer service agents. Empowering your customers is a great way to save time and resources, while also serving the customers needs. Set up a self-service section that your customers can access. This area will include a multitude of digital assets that your customers can reference including product images, PDFs, white papers, operator manuals, frequently asked questions (FAQs) and answers, instructional videos, or anything that is specific to your business you feel would be a great resource for your customers.

3. Share Information Across Departments

One of the hallmarks of a great customer service program is the ability to enable your sales team to perform better. The best way to create an organization where the customer service department is an asset to the sales department is by installing a framework that allows for the timely transfer of information across departments. Customer service portals, agents and chat windows, are filled with customer insights that you or your sales team can use to better plan and message your value proposition to potential customers. All of that purchase history, search terms, and website analytics needs to be shared across departments so that it can support the omni-channel experience.

4. Have a Responsive Web Design

This is a fundamental and extremely critical aspect of customer service. Responsive design allows your customers to access your website in any format, whether it be a tablet, cell phone, or desktop computer. Mobile usage surpassed desktop usage over 2 years ago and shoppers are researching and making purchases on their phones more than ever.

Allowing for responsive design will not only make it easier for customers to get in contact with you, as well as allow customers to do whatever they need to on their mobile device. This is more convenient for your customers and will result in a great experience that keeps them returning.

5. Know Your Buyer

Just like your product or service catalog is set up with messaging that is directed at your target buyer, so too must your customer service strategy be positioned in a way that speaks to your target buyer. Millennials are now the largest generation in the US workforce and are handy with every type of digital resource. Not only that, the new generations have the power of customer reviews at their fingertips. Before the dawn of review sites, businesses were solely in control of their brand image. In the modern market, new buyers have the power of social media and review networks.
Millennials have high expectations. They demand great mobile experiences and expect to be able to access the information they need whenever they want. If their expectations are not met, they will let the world know about it. This should underline the importance of providing a stellar omni-channel customer service experience that speaks directly to these influencers.

6. Centralize Internal Information

This best practice goes hand-in-hand with number 3 (share information across departments). No matter what business model you operate under, maintaining and organizing every single source of information related to your business in a single location allows customer service employees to know where they can find the “truth” their customers are after. No matter which channel your customers choose to reach you through, your customer service representatives will be able to access the central hub of information for any of the resources they need to resolve the issue. A centralized hub for your internal information will ensure the consistency of the answers and information that is being put out to customers, whether from a person, automated chatbot, or another messaging system.

Centralize internal information

7. Create a Highly Adaptive Environment

The nature of the modern technological environment all but guarantees that there will be advances in technology, shifts in customer perception, and market factors that demand flexibility. When you are designing your customer service infrastructure, make sure that you create it in a way that allows for additional adaptability and flexibility. If you make your structure to rigid, you will find it difficult to adapt to future trends, technology, or market conditions. Make sure you use technology that is easy to implement and can be configured easily to ensure a smooth transition into the future.

8. Facilitate a Real-Time Environment

Customers are trying to get their problems solved quickly. In fact, per CCW Digital’s recent customer experience study, 70% of customers demand resolutions on the first contact. Making your customer service an omni-channel environment that supports real-time conversations is, without a doubt, one of the best features you can incorporate.

When a customer wants help, its imperative you interact and solve their issues before they find another company who will. With technology like text messaging, web chat, and social messaging, you can have your customer service agents solving your customers’ problems as soon as you become aware of them, increasing customer satisfaction and brand loyalty in the process.

9. Prepare for the Next Generation

Preparing for the next wave of customers is paramount to your business’ future success. A streamlined self-service capability is a great way to do just that. Setting up your customer service strategy to let customers handle any account specific issues like updating permissions, address changes, and other administrative duties themselves is a great way to ensure that the next generation can solve their problems quickly and easily.

10. Use a Data-Driven Approach

Off all the best practices, this is perhaps the hardest yet most valuable best practice you can implement. Think about it from a strategic perspective for a second: data should be influencing your decisions across the wide spectrum of your business. Data is what supports your decision to market towards a certain customer segment, its what directs your attention to growth opportunities — it should be no different for your customer service strategy. Allowing data to guide your approach means that you prioritize the gathering, storing, and analysis of data. Throughout your customer service platform channels, make sure you that you are using the appropriate solutions. Are you using the right solution? You are if it meets customer needs AND provides quantitative feedback.

How do you know if your customers are abandoning the customer service pipeline if you are not tracking the abandonment rate? That is challenge businesses face: how do we collect data from multiple channels and organize it in a manner that we can act on? The first step is to make sure your solutions are able to provide you the data you need to take actionable steps on reporting metrics.

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Increase Conversion Rates With These 7 Business Messaging Tips

Posted on Max Fortis

While conversion rates are more traditionally tied to eCommerce sites, it’s a metric that every company cares about. A conversion can mean different things for different companies. Websites can measure conversions by the number of visits, form fills, subscriptions or, more commonly the number of sales made. The goal you’re measuring can be a macro goal, like requesting a demo or it could be a micro-conversion such as watching a video. No matter what the conversion is, there’s always one universal thread that binds them all together. Everyone wants more of them.

Your conversion rate is a direct reflection of the number of visitors that find value when they visit your website. For the purpose of this article, we’ll think about a conversion as any action that leads to revenue generation such as a cart checkout or an appointment confirmed. In this article, we’ll share a few customer messaging tips to help you increase your online conversion rate.

Text Messaging Increases Conversions

Driving traffic to your site is only part of the conversion equation. Once you get traffic there, that user will either bounce from your site or engage in some way. Messaging may not be an obvious way to get more conversions, but it’s proven to be an effective one. Again, we’re seeking to move a site visitor to complete a transaction. There may be some barriers you have to remove for that visitor before they complete the transaction, such as finding the right solution on your site or answering questions about security. Messaging is the vehicle to help you do that.

The average conversion rate across for online retailer is just about 2%. While that may seem shockingly low to some, achieving that number takes some serious effort. Optimizing your site with compelling copy, clear call to actions and easy, logical navigation are critical to hit even the average number of conversions. It’s not unrealistic to achieve conversion rates higher than 2%, but you need to employ ways to get your site visitors engaged with your brand.

Quiq clients have realized an increase in conversions when they’ve implemented messaging. Retail clients, like The Laundress for example, use messaging to provide customers with personalized help to find and purchase the right products. Messaging has allowed their agents to provide the same kind of white-glove service to online customers that visitors to the retailer’s trendy SoHo location have come to expect.

At Quiq, we believe any customer should be able to reach any business via messaging. Why? Because interacting via messaging is the fastest and most convenient way to do business. We’ve also found that messaging encourages customers to re-engage with your brand.

Whether you already have messaging available on your site or are considering opening this up as a channel for your customers, there are a few critical things to keep in mind to make the experience truly beneficial for you and your website visitor. Follow these 7 customer messaging tips to increase conversion rates.

7 Customer Messaging Tips to Increase Conversions

1. Make live chat available right on the homepage

On a sales floor, you don’t let customers suffer in silence. At a trade show, you wouldn’t let prospects just wander aimlessly around the booth. It shouldn’t be hard for customers to reach you on your website. Put out the welcome mat and let customers know that you’re available to answer questions right away.

There are a few asynchronous ways your customers can contact you that sit under the Messaging umbrella. Live chat, SMS, MMS, rich messaging, and social platforms like Twitter and Facebook all present opportunities for you to connect, engage, and convert. All of these channels can be easily managed with the Quiq platform.

2. Make text messaging just as easy

If you’ve ever tried live chat on a mobile phone you know that the experience is less than ideal. Considering the number of purchase decisions that begin with and end with search on a mobile phone, it would be wise to make sure your mobile experience rival that of your desktop experience.

While chat may be the answer for desktop customer messaging, it can be clumsy and cumbersome on a mobile device. Instead, enable a “Text Us” option on your mobile optimized site so that your customer can communicate via their native messaging app. Most traditional chat experiences require both agent and customer to maintain a constant presence on chat, otherwise the chat “times out” and closes itself automatically. Because Quiq’s chat and messaging channels are all asynchronous, the conversation is never closed and it never ends. This allows your customer to send and respond to messages when it’s convenient for them.

3. Use inviting imagery

Since we’re visual creatures by nature, the use of well lit, clear images will keep customers engaged in the conversation and provide more context around the conversation. For retailers, this could be just the right enticement for customers to explore more product lines.

Modern messaging apps allow sharing of hi-res images, videos, links, PDFs, and gifs. Include attractive images of products, videos of client testimonies, or even fun emojis depending on the conversation to add that personal touch.

4. Add an element of interactivity

No one likes a one-sided conversation where one side is talking and the other side may, or may not, be listening. People and your customers want to be heard. It is critical to ensure there are open, two-way channels to support this requirement. Some communication channels, like email may feel like you were “talking at” your customers, modern messaging apps, like Apple Business Chat and Google RCS helps you “talk with” your customers.

These messaging platforms, allow consumers to easily interact with rich cards. Now consumers can choose from a list of available times to schedule an appointment or select the color of an item from a list products – all within a messaging conversation with just a few taps.

5. Give an approximate time for a reply

Every channel has certain expectations that come with it. The same goes with messaging. Customers expect ease, convenience and timeliness. If a successful promo or other event spikes your wait times on the messaging channel, let your customers know how long they can expect to wait.

Couple their approximate wait time with a message such as “Our wait times are longer than expected due to our successful winter sale”. This seemingly small tweak not only notifies your customers how long they may wait, but also provides some social proof that affirms your brand. As we’ve come to understand, social proof, like referrals or online reviews can help online conversions.

6. Provide multiple options for communication

Contact center leadership may cringe at the thought of having to manage multiple contact points simultaneously. Omni-channel communications can sound daunting but Quiq Messaging makes it manageable.

You never know where a prospective buyer may see you. An intriguing Tweet, an irresistible photo on Facebook, or a search on Siri could prompt a prospect to reach out to you. With Quiq, you can easily manage every conversation that comes in via text, live chat, app, social profiles, or searches on Google and Apple.

7. Have a real person available to assist with questions

Consumers are turning to messaging because they’ve exhausted their patience on FAQ pages and with email, and they simply don’t want to call for help just to wade through a confusing IVR system to talk to a live agent. They want answers, and they want them now.

Quiq clients have found success in using technology such as chatbots to gather information prior to handing the conversation over to a live agent. The main objective is supporting the agent with enough information to help your customer faster. Use automation to enhance the human touch, not replace it.

Increasing conversion rates, no matter what that may mean for your site is about getting visitors engaged. While messaging have proven over and over again to be the friction-free way for customers to get post-sales service, we’re seeing more evidence everyday that proves it is also providing the pre-sales support that increases conversions.

Pier 1 Cozies Up To Effortless Customer Engagement

Posted on Mike Zinne

Retailer Pier 1 Imports, has been around for 56 years and knows a thing or two about evolving within a competitive retail market. The importer of home goods and seasonal products also knows about catering to the changing and diverse tastes of their customers.

Shifting Buyer Behavior

Pier 1, as well as all other retailers, are experiencing growth in mobile shopping and purchasing as customers continue to look for ways to buy that are more convenient for them. The company made it a top priority to make their customer experience “easy and effortless”, so that she could shop when, where, and however she liked. The retailer launched its eCommerce channel in July of 2012 and has seen rapid growth in the online sales.

“As the business model became more complex, we realized that a lot of our systems were outdated legacy systems and we needed to upgrade our technology to make our associates more efficient.”

Laurie Simpter, Senior Manager, Customer Relations, Pier 1 Imports

During the first three years after implementing their eCommerce site, their contact center struggled to keep up with the new volume.

Pier 1 decided to implement Quiq’s messaging software as consumer traffic to the pier1.com site continued to grow. The shift to more digital channels proved to be, once again, an evolution to serve their customers better that allowed the company to have a more efficient conversation with their customer.

Motivated by Mobile

Phone with messaging services

The leadership team recognized that email and phone weren’t the most effective or preferred ways for customers to ask questions. It was also suspected that the inability to quickly answer these simple questions in-line negatively impacted website conversions and sales.

Many retailers are experiencing similar issues with email and phone as consumers’ contact preferences have changed. Research shows that 66% of consumers rank mobile messaging as their first or second choice to contact a company.

The company started with chat as a contact channel. The channel was readily accepted, and volume grew rapidly while positively impacting website conversion.

With the effectiveness of chat and an increase in mobile traffic to the website, Pier 1 looked at SMS/text messaging for their mobile site as the next obvious channel. While the retailer normally targets the 35 – 55 age group, they realized that their customer could be any age and that a younger buyer generally uses SMS and text messaging as their preferred channel over phone and email.

Contact Us

Q: What made you look at SMS as a contact channel?

A:  SMS combines the efficiency of chat with the convenience of email – which is not an immediate response channel.

The ability to easily share pictures was another customer-driven requirement. Whether it’s a space they are trying to decorate, an item they are trying to match, or a damaged product they received, the ability for customers to easily share photos and videos from their mobile device directly supports the “effortless experience” Pier 1 seeks to deliver.

Implementing with Efficiency

Prior to launching the eCommerce channel, the contact center had about 25 agents and supported 2 contact channels – phone and email. Contacts were heavily skewed towards supporting stores. The company used a legacy CRM and had over 25 siloed systems & applications that contact center agents accessed for data.

Man holding a phone taking a picture

The company has integrated many of their siloed systems into just a handful, and grown its contact center to over 150 agents with over 85% of

the contact center conversations driven by website and eCommerce purchases. The company also invested in a new CRM solution. Streamlining and efficiency have been top priority over the past few years.  The addition of the messaging channel had to complement the company’s efforts.

Quiq Messaging did not disappoint. Once Pier 1 decided to add SMS as a channel, implementation took about 2 weeks and went live in December 2017. In fact, Chris Thompson, CX Manager at Pier 1 feels it was “one of the easiest implementations we have ever done.” Quiq’s messaging platform also seamlessly integrates into Pier 1’s new CRM system, right inside the agent UI, both ensuring the messaging channel wasn’t siloed and that the agents could easily handle inquiries from multiple channels from one interface.

“Every company wants efficiency. For us, chat and SMS interactions take about half of the total time of a phone call. We are gaining payroll efficiency by shifting contacts away from phone and email to chat and SMS.”

Chris Thompson, Pier 1 Imports

Pier1 ImportsLessons Learned

Pier 1 learned 2 really important lessons about the SMS channel, right from the start:

     1. Phone and email decreased; chat and SMS increased

     2. Customers LOVED the convenience of directly messaging Pier 1

The retailer saw a measurable channel shift. Customers shifted away from phone and email to chat and SMS.

Q: How have customers responded to the SMS channel? 

A:  Our customers loved the convenience of SMS. Within the first 30 minutes of going live, one of our customers said, “Wow, I had no idea that Pier 1 had a texting option and it was so easy. I am using this from now on. Thank You!”

What’s Next

Pier 1 feels that they’ve reached a state of proficiency with SMS, and seeks to expand its presence in their short and long-term roadmap. For the short term, Pier 1 will add a ‘Text Us’ option within the phone channel (IVR) for when hold times reach a pre-determined threshold. They will also be limiting phone hours with an IVR message encouraging customers to reach out to the company through text messaging.

With the continued focus to create an effortless experience for their customer, Pier 1 plans to add a messaging option to social media channels, while expanding messaging options to the desktop and tablet website instances.

How Messaging Transforms Customer Service And Support: A Visit With Bozeman Startup Quiq

Posted on Lauren Winder

Shep Hyken is a customer service and experience expert, keynote speaker and New York Times and Wall Street Journal, bestselling author. Recently, Shep shared why he thinks some brands have decoded how to connect with their customers. Read the Forbes article to hear Shep Hyken’s recommendation on using messaging to increase customer satisfaction.

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Impact: Best Practices for Getting Started with Conversational Marketing & Sales

Posted on Lauren Winder

Think Quiq!

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Quiq makes it easy for customers to contact a business via Messaging, the preferred channel already in use with friends and family.  With Quiq, customers can engage with companies via SMS/text messaging, Facebook Messenger, Web Chat, In-App, and Kik for help with their pre-sales and post-sales questions. In return, companies get a digital engagement platform to communicate with customers. Learn more about Quiq today at goquiq.com.

How Messaging Fits Into The Call Center

Posted on Michael Hartsog

Are your customers antagonized by a complex IVR menu maze? Do they get frustrated and press zero to talk to a live person, shout “agent, agent, agent”, or hang up before they resolve their issue? You’re not alone. Although IVR has been viewed as a pillar of customer self-service for a long time, most people have a strong aversion to using them.

IVR systems have received a lot of scrutiny as consumers, especially Millennials, have become increasingly more self-reliant and mobile. Advocates and critics have predicted the rise and fall of IVR for decades. Maybe it’s time we start to think of a different outcome – one that isn’t a total win or lose game for IVR.

In this post, we’ll discuss how IVR must evolve in order to stay relevant in today’s mobile world. We’ve identified three things that must be brought into the IVR experience.

Omni-Channel

Consumers live across many devices. Laptops, smartphones, and tablets are the screens that manage our lives day in and day out. Whether it’s staying in touch with our family or friends or staying on top of current news, we are digitally connected and dependent. From tracking our diets to tracking packages, there is an expectation of immediacy and availability of information and support that spans channels.

These expectations don’t stop once a customer picks up the phone to call a company. In fact, this is where those expectations can turn into impatience and frustration.  In fact, 93% of customers using a call center channel want one call resolution (OCR).

However, many customers hang up before they even speak to anyone.  Call abandonment rates can average anywhere from 10% – 15% depending on the industry. For those calls that do engage an agent, OCR is at a 72% industry average, which means 28% of customers have to call back one or many times to reach a resolution.

These stats tell us that anywhere from 38% – 43% of customers picking up the phone for customer service are not getting the level of service they want and expect. We believe IVRs will have to present customers with channel options, other than just voice so customers can find more convenient paths to issue resolution.

This is exactly the reason a lot of Quiq clients have looked at messaging as a way to honor the needs of the digitally connected customer. These clients are enabling asynchronous messaging over SMS, social, and the web. Quiq Messaging integrates directly into an existing IVR and enables existing landlines to send and receive text messages.

Personal

IVR’s are notoriously robotic, confusing, and impersonal. Future IVR’s may find ways to change that with advances in voice recognition and by making menu options more visual. The use of visual communications is on a rise throughout all media consumed because it helps relay information faster and with a more clear and more consistent delivery.

For instance, Quiq clients have found that customers are engaging heavily through mobile devices. The majority feel right at home attaching documents, emojis, gifs, videos, and photos to bring more context to their specific situation. Agents who use Quiq Messaging are often encouraged to use visual content such as emojis to make conversations with customers feel more like the conversations they have with friends and family.

Quiq clients are also adopting messaging as a way to make conversations feel more human by adapting to the customer’s speed and pace of interaction. Quiq’s Adaptive Response Timer automatically prioritizes conversations for agents based on the customer’s engagement pace to give each customer a more tailored experience.

Mobile

Calls get missed or dropped. Customers get busy and have to abandon conversations. Future IVRs will have to be more accommodating to the lives of busy customers who don’t want to shout “representative” or “agent” repeatedly into the phone while in noisy environments or sit through confusing menus only to be put on hold.

Instead of having customers wait on hold, Quiq clients are able to provide customers the option, within the IVR, to have the next available agent text them. By deflecting calls to messaging, our clients are able to give customers a more preferred option to engage. By deflecting calls to messaging, our clients are able to give customers a more preferred option to engage, while reducing workload ~25 to ~40%.

Research shows that 71% of consumers find text messaging to be an extremely or very effective Consumer-to-Business (C2B) communication channel (Customer Preference for Messaging). Customers appreciate having the option to address their issues over the channel that is most convenient for them.

With asynchronous communications such as text messaging, conversations can take place over a time period that fits the customer’s pace, so even if your customer has to walk away from a conversation or gets disconnected, conversations pick up right where they left off.

IVR still remains one of the leading entry points for consumers to engage with companies. However, it’s also the costliest way for companies to interact with their customers and the most inconvenient way for customers to engage. Quiq Messaging allows you to deliver a personal, mobile, omnichannel experience – easily integrating within your current IVR. If you’re ready to bring your IVR into the future, request a demo today.

Quiq makes it easy for customers to contact a business via Messaging, the preferred channel already in use with our friends and family.  With Quiq, customers can now engage with companies via SMS/text messaging, Facebook Messenger, Web Chat, In-App, and Kik for help with their pre-sales and post-sales questions.

BizReport: Top 5 Tips to Improve Social Customer Service

Posted on Lauren Winder

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Quiq makes it easy for customers to contact a business via Messaging, the preferred channel already in use with friends and family.  With Quiq, customers can engage with companies via SMS/text messaging, Facebook Messenger, Web Chat, In-App, and Kik for help with their pre-sales and post-sales questions. In return, companies get a digital engagement platform to communicate with customers. Learn more about Quiq today at goquiq.com.

3 Ways Software Companies Accelerate Time-to-Value With SMS Messaging

Posted on Max Fortis

Helping your customer realize the value of your software, app, or game as quickly as possible is the cornerstone of successful adoption and retention. As a SaaS company, we understand how critical it is to maintain momentum with a customer while they are excited about your solution and accelerate Time-to-Value (TtV).

We are starting to see a lot of software companies accelerate TtV for their users using social media and other digital technologies, including sending outbound messages via Quiq Messaging.

Here are a few best practices we’ve learned along the way about TtV and outbound messaging, as well as how consumer software companies put messaging to use:

1. Set your new users up with ease

More and more, companies are starting to leverage Quiq’s outbound messaging to deliver successful experiences with their software, app, or game. It is a fact that outbound text messaging has a higher open and response rate than any other channel. With an average open rate of 96%, far higher than email, text messaging ensures your customers see and open the important messages that will improve their early experience with your technology. You can help your customers get setup and started with outbound notifications that remind them to complete a profile, link an account, create a password, or whatever needs to be done to begin realizing value immediately.

Quiq’s clients find that sending timely hints and tips via outbound text messages help end users get more out of their product in much less time. What’s more, if a user is having trouble during setup or implementation, they can simply reply to the original text message from the company to initiate a 1-to-1 text messaging conversation with your customer service team. Customer service agents can easily handle multiple, simultaneous text messages just like they would any other channel. This kind of proactive, 2-way messaging is helping Quiq’s clients become even “stickier” with their end users.

2. Accelerate adoption and usage with proactive notifications

Onboarding is one of those moments of truths that can make or break the long-term adoption of your software. Once you get past the initial set-up, your new customers may need a little extra help along the way. We all know that people get busy and distracted. Making sure everything is running smoothly , especially for consumer-facing SaaS companies, can easily be affected by overly busy users who don’t have time to figure out how to use your solution to its fullest capabilities.

Beyond initial adoption, software companies can stay top of mind by engaging in two-way conversations with customers via messaging. Allow end users to initiate conversations with your company to get help with any questions. Add “text us” to your mobile website and list of “contact us” sources on your desktop website. Take advantage of outbound SMS messaging to keep users engaged and active after onboarding. When a user tries to jump in and “figure it out” as they go, it can lead to frustration and premature abandonment. Proactive, outbound messages with bite-sized tips and tricks and best practices keep users engaged and helps them take full advantage of all the functionality you built for them. This type of bilateral communication helps the user continue to recognize value from your product and keeps their momentum going.

3. Get ahead of any dreaded “churn”

When you turn on your faucet, you expect water to flow. When you flip a switch, you expect light. When a consumer downloads an app, they expect it to work. The internet, smartphones, and apps have become utilities like other modern conveniences that consumers expect just to work. When they don’t, cries of outrage can be heard far and wide.

When something isn’t working as expected, whether the source of the issue is on the customer’s end or yours, you’ll want the ability to help as quickly and painlessly as possible. There is a strong possibility that the customer may never find the time or want to deal with the hassle of giving you a call, sending an email, or filling out a “contact us” form on your website. With text messaging you can provide support 24/7, giving them a way to quickly send in their question or issue when it’s convenient for them.

Recognizing the issue is the first step in helping your user get back on track to value as soon as possible. Engaging others in the company that may be better equipped to resolve an issue is the next critical step. With Quiq, messages can be routed and transferred so that you get the best resources for a quick resolution and eliminate the risk of users getting frustrated and looking at competitive solutions.

Keep the momentum going

Emails are often ignored, and updates on your website can be easily missed. Even if you have an app, users can turn notifications off. So how do you best keep your customers informed? From tips and tricks, to new feature announcements, to planned downtime, your customers can stay in the know about essential updates with proactive 2-way outbound SMS notifications.

Text messaging is pervasive and continues to prove to be the channel of choice for end users to send and receive messages. Companies that establish text messaging as a two-way communication channel can realize higher adoption rates, while reducing TtV, all by delivering messages on a pervasive, preferred, and convenient channel.

Quiq Messaging is how consumer-facing software companies are cutting through the noise to deliver critical messages to their customer’s mobile device. We help companies engage with their users where they already live – on their phone, on the web, and on social media.

About Quiq

Quiq makes it easy for customers to contact a business via Messaging, the preferred channel already in use with our friends and family.  With Quiq, customers can now engage with companies via SMS/text messaging, Facebook Messenger, Web Chat, In-App,and Kik for help with their pre-sales and post-sales questions. Learn more about Quiq today at quiqstaging.wpengine.com.

Increase Customer Acquisition for Your Service-based Business

Posted on Mark Kowal

Usually, a buyer’s journey starts with an initial thought – a question that often begins something like “I wonder if…” “I wonder if I could add an alarm system to my home?”

From there, a buyer may start to passively look around to see if that “what if” scenario they’re envisioning could become a reality. “I wonder how much these new wireless monitoring systems cost?”

Sometimes, there’s a compelling event that motivates the buyer to search for solutions immediately. For the majority of purchases, the journey begins with a thought that eventually turns into actively looking for answers.

Our hypothetical buyer above will eventually want to ask questions, set up an appointment, and get quotes. Imagine when our buyer starts looking for options during their lunch hour and your security monitoring business pops up as a contender. Now imagine that instead of our buyer jotting down your phone number to call later, he sends a quick text message to ask if someone could come by and take a look at his home.

Later that day, before he’s even called anyone else, he checks his phone and sees you’ve responded. This conversation can continue as he goes about his day. Convenience – that’s just one of the reasons consumers prefer text messaging over calling to communicate with businesses.

As the number of consumers who are comfortable with the quick, efficient, responsive nature of mobile messaging continues to swell this method of engagement will continue to grow and scenarios like the one above will become commonplace. Many of the service-based businesses we talk to have already spotted this trend toward mobile messaging and are looking at Quiq Messaging to make the pre-sales process easier for customers.

Text Messaging opens a Sales Channel

In the report, “Customer Preference for Messaging,” we found that nearly half of the people surveyed “would choose one product/service over another based on mobile messaging availability.” Consumers are looking for products and services that fit into their busy lifestyles and clicking around a website or waiting on hold to get questions answered just doesn’t work for them anymore.

Consider our home security example above, today’s buyer interested in adding a security system to their home want to text in questions like “Do I need a landline to set up your system?” or “Do I need to sign a contract to get started?” Buyers today want to get those pre-qualifying questions answered on their terms – on the channel and at the pace they prefer. Later, our buyer, interested in getting a quote can text “When can someone come by to give me a quote?”. This kind of convenience can set a company apart from other service providers.

Text Messaging raises your Brand Perception

In this wired day and age, we’re finding more and more consumers are expecting the brands they prefer to provide exceptional customer experience across all of the channels they are on (web, social, text). While many companies are still trying to optimize outdated channels like IVR systems and email, others are looking for more innovative ways to set themselves apart from the competition.

Quiq Messaging allows you to add a level of sophistication to your communication channels that will raise the perception of your brand among prospective customers. Our research shows that a majority of buyers “would pay more for a product/service if it is supported by a mobile messaging channel.” This preference and willingness to pay a premium for the convenience of text messaging puts a spotlight on the high value placed on mobile messaging across all age demographics.

In addition to raising the perception of your brand, service-based businesses have the opportunity to amplify their word of mouth efforts. Now, more than ever, consumers are influenced by the recommendations of friends and family, and even social media.

Leaving customers happy and satisfied with their experience by providing a convenient, easily accessible way to engage with your business throughout the entire buying process will help support positive word-of-mouth for your business.

Raising the Standards for Customer Acquisition

Twenty years ago, banner ads could grab someone’s attention and get response rates north of 70%. Ten years ago, receiving an email from a company was an innovative way to drive a customer back to your business. Now, only about 20% of emails even get opened, let alone read. Today, those two methods have become what most people consider noise and are often overlooked.

Businesses must now think of more innovative ways to differentiate themselves and earn business. As research shows, buyers want and expect companies to provide them with personal, timely, and convenient communication to build a meaningful two-way relationship. Quiq Messaging is how innovative companies are making that happen.

Quiq presents a unique opportunity to open a new, preferred channel to customers by allowing consumers a way to contact your service-based business via messaging. The added ease and convenience will make your business the more attractive choice within a hyper-competitive market.

Quiq allows you to be where your customers are and enables engagement with service-based companies via SMS/text messaging, Facebook Messenger, Web Chat, In-App, and Kik for help with their pre-sales and post-sales questions. Learn more about Quiq today at quiqstaging.wpengine.com.

About Quiq

Quiq makes it easy for customers to contact a business via Messaging, the preferred channel already in use with our friends and family.  With Quiq, customers can now engage with companies via SMS/text messaging, Facebook Messenger, Web Chat, In-App,and Kik for help with their pre-sales and post-sales questions. Learn more about Quiq today at quiqstaging.wpengine.com.

Customer Service Messaging Infographic

Posted on The Quiq Team

This customer service messaging infographic was developed from the results of a Quiq partnered 2017 U.S. research study with Market Strategies International to understand consumer’s interest, preference, and demand for using Messaging to engage with Customer Service organizations.

See the full report…